Stone Drops

When I started writing music I had wanted to lessen a darkness inside me, this hard knot in the pit of my stomach that left a bitter after taste in my mouth. It seemed the more I wrote, however, the bigger it grew and my mouth always tasted like black vinegar. Melancholy and music are blood sisters, at least that is how I had always seen it, until I met Tarly May.

See I am what you would consider a 'rockstar', I formed a band fourteen years ago with two crazy kids from my neighbourhood. I write best selling albums and perform at sold out concerts, well Pete plays the drums, Ralph plays the bass. I mean they do their jobs alright but I have always been the heart of the Oathbreakers, I even came up with the name. So I'm sure you know how girls are with rock bands, we have a few 'camp-followers' that are on our tails from state to state. They cheer louder than anybody else and are the first to toss their underwear on the stage before all the other girls follow suit. I mean, at first I was flattered and truly appreciated their 'enthusiasm'. I was never a bad looking chap and girls always did like my eyes but never so many women all at once and some of them even looked great, can't say all of them though, there was that Cathy with the teeth. I had them all regardless, I mean that's what rockstars are supposed to do isn't it?

After a while I got tired of them frankly they started annoying me, even Stoned Sammy. We called her that because she always seemed to be stoned to hell even when she wasn't but boy was she gorgeous. Everything was exactly the way I liked it, the right size and her face was perfect with her brown eyes and blonde hair. Anyone could tell it wasn't her original colour but who cares she was hot. Our last night together I tried to have a real conversation with her, one that wouldn't lead to anything, I needed that then.

"You know Sammy, I feel like something is missing in my life," I began.

"Missing?" She had responded, a quizzical look on her face.

"Yes, as if all this money and all this music isn't enough to make me happy," I said, surprised at how desolate I felt at that moment.

"Maybe you need more money Raze," she said. A look of genuine concern on her face, I almost burst into laughter or tears I was not sure. God that girl was dumb.

"Maybe," a sad chuckle escaping me. "I need to get some sleep."

"I know what will cheer you up Raze," she said, digging her manicured nails into her jeans and producing a small plastic bag half filled with a white substance.

"I told you never to bring that here," I said struggling to keep calm.

"Oh Raze," she said with a mischievous smile, crawling towards the hotel bed where I sat.

"Get out of here with that!" I yelled louder than I had intended. "I never want to see you again! Out!" I half dragged and half shoved her out of the door. I saw the same confused, quizzical look before I slammed the door in her face.

Alright, maybe I am not a real rockstar. I do not do drugs, I drink only when necessary, I make my hotel room bed before I leave (yes I know, I literally do that). For the past seven years I have not slept with random groupies, I do not party like it's the end of the world. I do attend parties but for the most part I just sit there and think. Thinking, now that is something I do a lot. I wear sunglasses all day and in brightly lit rooms because of these headaches I get, my doctor says it's because of the stress, I think too much. I am aware of that but I can not help it. So sunglasses during the night has become a thing that 'Oathbreakers' everywhere do, a trend.

"So what is it that makes you so great?" A woman from some magazine asked me during an interview a while back.

In all honesty I can not say. There are four of us in the band now, Track joined us ten years ago and he is what you might call 'the life of the party'. He is more of a rockstar than I am, in terms of the lifestyle and with his help my band mates have turned into ultimate party animals. So while they are out there getting all kinds of stoned I am in my hotel room writing music, that's my high, my drug, my darkness. I heard our song 'Terrible Tears' on the radio and if I had not written it I would be afraid of the mind that came up with those words. So is that why I'm so great? Because I work hard?

No, remember that darkness I spoke of? That's it, that is why I'm so great because of the cold knot in my stomach that engulfs me in melancholy and consumes me. I have noticed that when a creative person is asked a question about their creative process they always feel the need to say something profound and meaningful, well not me:

"I don't know, I think it's the sun glasses," I had replied, a corner smile on my face and she coloured. I might not be a real rockstar but women don't seem to notice.

Ah but in order for you to understand why I'm sitting in my country house in Ireland with a square bottle on one hand and a fistful of pills in the other I need to go back a nearly a year ago. See we had just finished our Terrible Tears Tour and I was beat, months and months of hotel rooms, early flights, bright lights and ridiculous headaches had left their mark on me. I stared at the mirror one morning and the rings beneath my eyes were darker, I had lost a lot of weight and my hair was a lot longer than it needed to be. Granted I was not that seventeen year old anymore, with his rough, strange voice that had been described once as a 'piece of ice lodging itself in your heart' these journalists can be pathetic. I still had my voice, and when I was not tired I look better than I did then, I certainly dress better.

I have a beach house in Florida and another one in the Hills, I could have gone to either of those. My favourite of course is my country house in Ireland, it's my own piece of heaven. It's a mini castle in the middle of nowhere surrounded by miles of green forestry that turns into an amazing navy blue at night. There is a stream close by and I wake up to the water crashing against the rocks every morning, it's absolute bliss. Oh and the inside is just as good, it's ancient and there are these paintings on the walls of the original occupants, my favourite is one of a small girl in those Victorian dresses staring at a candle, absolutely captivated by the flame. So I decided after the tour that I would go to Ireland, but first I would visit my mother.

Savannah Thatcher, my mother, still lived in the same neighbourhood where I grew up. She would not move and I had not argued, it would have been utterly pointless she is as stubborn as a mule. Besides she thought rock was the devil's music and she would not live in the devil's house. Which was funny because she had no problem taking the devil's money. First thing I did was get a haircut, I mean not too much just a clip here and a clip there to make it an even shoulder length. My hair is a deep black that is almost blue and my eyes look almost blue as well in the barber mirror but I know they are a murky green. I decide to get my facial hair shaved as well and when I look at myself in mirror afterwards I look almost seventeen again.

"Well aren't you quite the looker," said a bony hairstylist with a nose ring and a snake tattoo coiled around his arm. I smiled, I imagine rather stiffly because in as much as attention from men was common to me I still could not get used to it. I did like his tattoo though, I had a few of those myself another aspect of 'rockstardom' that I had embraced. 'VINI VIDI VICI' was the only visible one across my left arm, I was wearing a black shirt with its sleeves rolled up and slim black trousers. Aside from the black and white converse sneakers, I looked rather proper, I had even tied my hair into a low bun. My mother always went on for hours about the 'devil clothes'.every time I visited so I made an effort for once.

I stood in my mother's verandah and I was Brandon Thatcher all over again not Razor the rock star. I think she stayed in that house just to torment me every time  visited. I had a terrible childhood and I know many people claim to have but I truly did. I will not get into the gory details because there is still much of this story to tell and I still have not explained why I'm going to kill myself in my country house in Ireland. So I knock a few times and I hear that old familiar voice telling me to come in, the woman is not even afraid of getting robbed, I shake my head and I walk in. Absolutely nothing has changed, still the same smell of rat poison and deep fried something hits you when you walk in. She is slumped on the sofa with a plate of greasy chicken, one of those relationship shows is on, I am not sure I don't watch TV. She does not even look up when I walk in.

"Hello ma," a trace of that old accent laced in the words and I swallow it down nervously.

"Oh it's you Bran," is that annoyance I sense in her tone. I do not hate my mother, no child ever truly does regardless of what they do to you or let happen to you. Seeing her there however, sitting in that sofa and shoving food down her throat as she did all those many years ago, I resented her.

"Yes ma, it's me. I brought you something," I said as I handed her the brown box. She made no effort to take it so I placed it on the table next to her feet.

"They were talking about you on TV this morning, you and that devil music," she spoke through her thin, greasy lips. "They say you make more money than anyone this year, that true?"

"I don't know and I think they meant more money than other artists not everyone," I stared squarely into her dull grey menacing eyes when I said this. Thank heavens I looked nothing like the woman. She was pink and fleshy without being too fat, a broad nose placed itself right in the middle of her face and her eyes were round and grey and shifty. I suddenly felt the urge to bolt out of there, I had seen her after all so no one could ever blame me for negligence. I should have left just then, when she told me to fetch her a glass of water I should have ran for the door, I could have avoided a whole lot of trouble, but no, I just had to be a good son and get her water.

I returned from the dim kitchen with a glass of water, the entire house was gloomy with its curtains closed and the light bulbs barely lighting up the ceiling. I would just give her the stupid glass and be gone, in an hour I would be on a flight to Ireland. No, I did not own a private jet, I suppose I could afford one I just never felt the need for it. Another sign of just how 'un-rockstar' I am.

I walked back into the living room, if you could even call it that and the curtains had been drawn and instead of just rat poison and deep fried something in the air now there was a little air freshener as well.

"Mrs Thatcher, there is a really nice car in your driveway," said a thin brunette in a grey apron on top of a black dress. My mother made no effort to reply her so I did:

"It's mine."

She turned around noticing me for the first time and okay let me just say I have seen beautiful women of every single creed, shape and size so I know what a beautiful woman looks like. Tarly May was what Track would describe as, "...alright, I mean I would do her," keep in mind that Track would do anything with a pulse. Do not get me wrong, I'm not saying she was ugly, not at all, she had nice thick hair and a nice pair of lips. I'm only saying compared to what I was used to, she was alright.

"Oh you are Brandon, her son right?"

"Right," I said taking the hand she held out and shaking it slightly. She had beautiful hands, soft and firm working hands.

"Well you've been holding out on me Savannah," she said with that corner smile that I knew all too well, my mother made no notion of having heard her. "I'm Tarly May, I live next door on 69"

A boy named Big Bob had lived next door on 69 when I was a child, the object of most of my childhood nightmares.

"Oh are you related to Bob?" I found myself asking.

"Ummm I do have a distant cousin named Bob but you wouldn't know him so no," then she grinned and said, "what? He a long lost lover of yours."

Something about those words twisted a long since unmoved piece of metal in my gut, not just the gay reference which I absolutely loathed but something far worse. My mother shot us one of her 'tread with caution' looks and I realised I was still clutching her glass.

"Something like that," I finally said and immediately felt nauseous for having said it.

Then I went over to the sofa and handed my mother the glass, which surprisingly she raised a hand to receive. Okay so I could have left then and would have woken up in my big round bed in the countryside with the smell of breakfast coming from the kitchen and the water from the stream crashing against the rocks. I would spend the entire day in my library, with that beautiful smell of pine wood and old books, home. But for some reason, one that is a complete mystery to me even to this day, I sat on a kitchen chair and asked Tarly May what she was doing, even though she was clearly cleaning up the place. So it was that I spent the next fifteen minutes or so listening to her tell me how she had come over to introduce herself to my mother a few weeks ago and had ended up offering to help around the house when she could.

Why I listened? Why I even cared? I cannot tell you because I don't know. I just know that for a moment in my mother's kitchen that cool, windy day, it was not so dark. I realised then that I had not listened to a woman talk in years, except for nosy journalists and the loud groupies. So I stayed just a bit longer, I should have left then.

In as much as I tried I could not bring myself to stay in that house. Even with all the air freshener and the floor vanish it still reeked of my mother, of me once. So that evening I parked my car in front of a hotel and carried my meagre luggage into the lobby, luggage isn't quite the word it was one leather bag. I remember laying in my hotel room that night and chuckling at my own stupidity. I could have been halfway to Ireland by now, or breathing in some tropical air in some island like Track had suggested, any place ought to have been better than that hotel.

My mind quickly drifted to Tarly May, I still remembered a lot of what she had said. Which was weird because I hardly pay attention to people.

"I work from home," she had said, "so I have a lot of time on my hands."

She had a sweet voice, very calm and calculated. She also had an ability to carry a conversation almost entirely on her own.

"I was new here, I needed some company and your mom needed some help," she explained.

So was that why I stayed? Because she had a sweet voice and eyes like polished ebony. No that couldn't be it, but I stayed all the same and for some reason that baffles me to this day, I knocked on her door the next morning.

I still remember the fluid blue dress she wore, it swayed with her every step and for a moment she looked like a dancer.

"Hey," she smiled, "what are you doing here?"

What was I doing there? It was cold and wet, I was shivering beneath my coat and my hair was a bit damp from the soft drizzle.

"I ummm, I wanted to take you to lunch to thank you for my helping out with my mom," I lied "but the rain had other plans."

She chuckled, more out of courtesy than amusement.

"Lunch? You do realise that it's 10 am?" she inquired, still supposedly amused.

"I do," I lied again, "it's just, when we are out on the road, we eat when we can. So lunch time and well time, sort of gets lost along the way."

"Do they? Well ummm you can come in and I'll see what I can do."

It was a few months later when she eventually told me that she had been nervous out of her mind when she opened the door and found me standing there, with hair plastered to my forehead and hands stuffed in my coat. I saw none of it that day, maybe because I felt like a harlot that just walked into a church myself.

Tarly could not cook but she could warm up left over pizza just as well as anybody. Her house reminded me of those mental asylums in the movies with the flickering lights and plain white walls. There were no flickering lights, just plain white walls that seemed to go on for ages in every single room. Everything had its place, well stacked and well organised. I do that too now, I organise my things and realise that I get a little agitated when something isn't where I left it.

That's probably the first reason, there are things that she used to do that I find myself doing and have become a part of me. I have no idea how it happened, it wasn't one of those "I saw her and I knew" moments that I've heard people talk about. She grew on me like a vine and before I knew it she had coiled herself to my very throat. I stayed in town for an entire month, I saw my mother only four times in that time and I saw Tarly everyday. Every morning I would wake up and ask myself what it was that I was hoping to achieve, what it was I was doing. And everyday, I would find myself on her doorstep or calling her to meet me at the BeanStalk (best coffee in the entire state). One minute she was telling me about her father who taught her how to drive a truck, the next I was inviting her to Ireland to "listen to the water crash against the rocks in the morning."

Needless to say, I wasn't a rockstar around her, I didn't need to be, I was just well...me. I wrote hundreds of songs in those four months. I played Stone Drops for her in this very room and she laughed when I said it was about her.

"She sounds cooler than me," she said and then laughed some more. Another thing that she could do was laugh at anything. Tarly had the weirdest laugh, it had cracks like a tiny snapping branch in between breaths. But more than anything, more than anything when Tarly lived, the darkness inside me didn't.

So at this moment it might seem like I'm killing myself because my girlfriend died in a car accident and I survived it, classic tragedy isn't it? I promise you there is more to it than that.

The problem isn't that she is dead, although it rips through my ribcage and literally tears through my heart just to think about it. The problem is that, she is dead but she is still not gone. I am aware of how this sounds, she died more than six months ago and I have seen every grief counsellor and shrink I can find, she is still here. When I wake up, she is breathing next to me, each breath as soft as sin. She is in the hall staring at the picture of the Victorian child with the candle:

"It's so weird," she laughs.

She is in that ugly gray sweater I hated, staring out the window at the stream. She wouldn't mind staying here forever she used to say. The nights are the worst, because then I feel her. She is giggling under the covers all night and her phantom fingers trace up and down my skin until I leap out of bed and walk around until dawn. I have thought of selling the house and going back on the road but she is there regardless of where I go. Tarly calls for me.

So I stand up, place the square bottle on the table and shove the hair from my face, it's grown wild again. I press play on my Ipod and sit back down, bottle back in hand. Track is a magician with a guitar and I don't sound too bad myself. She is sitting on the bed, sheet clutched beneath her arms and her knees drawn to her chest.

"She sounds cooler than me," and then that laugh.

"Oh but it's you, love," I find myself saying.

The words of the song are fading into whisper:

…she smiles and a stone drops in my gut
It's not enough for her to bruise, she slices and she cuts
Blood like fluid pain on her fingernails
"It's only because I love you," she explains
Oh...and she smiles and a stone drops in my gut.…

Tarly truly did have an amazing smile.